


Darcy's Family

by Kayasurin



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: And gets kidnapped, Bruce too, But there's a rescue, Darcy is a bamf, Mistaken intentions, Mostly Darcy, Other characters mostly mentioned, Unexpected child, slices of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 11:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayasurin/pseuds/Kayasurin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He was young, and drunk, and I was young, and drunk, and sometimes these things happen, sweetheart. It doesn't change the fact that I love you very much, and I bet if he knew about you he'd love you too."</p>
<p>Darcy thought about it, shrugged, and said that was great and all, but could Momma help with the family tree chart for school now? They'd just write in "young, drunk idiot" for her Daddy.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Darcy's never known her father. Then aliens attack New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darcy's Family

1\. When Darcy Annabelle Lewis was twelve years old, her Momma sat her down and explained why she didn't have a daddy like most of the other kids.

It wasn't that he didn't love her, or that they were divorced, or that her Momma wanted another woman to be Darcy's second Momma (though, strictly speaking, Momma brought home uncles _and_ aunts, and Darcy didn't care, so long as they never taped over her recordings of the Ponies) or anything like that. It was because he didn't know she existed at all.

"He was young, and drunk, and I was young, and drunk, and sometimes these things happen, sweetheart. It doesn't change the fact that I love you very much, and I bet if he knew about you he'd love you too."

Darcy thought about it, shrugged, and said that was great and all, but could Momma help with the family tree chart for school now? They'd just write in "young, drunk idiot" for her Daddy.

Momma laughed and said "sure, why not" and even if Mrs. Tulip or Birch or whatever the hell her name had been didn't like it, the chart had a place of pride on the fridge door for over a year.

2\. Darcy was fourteen when Mom mentioned, practically out of the blue, that she was a pretty girl and had her father's hair and eyes.

She was curious. That was really her only excuse. But that one comment was enough of a goad that Darcy proceeded to spend five weekends going through her Mom's old photos from her Wild Years. They weren't sorted into year or anything, so she had to go through each one. Obviously the ones where Mom looked like she'd stuffed a beach ball under her shirt were given a pass; Darcy had been a small, but active fetus, and Mom looked like she was carrying triplets in those pictures.

She eventually found pictures. Five of them. Mom was utterly smashed in all of them.

As for the guy- well, Darcy was assuming it was the right guy, but he had dark hair, and dark eyes, and the five pictures showed a steady progression from 'shy and tipsy' to 'shy, disbelieving, and utterly hammered'. He looked younger than her Mom, him barely drinking age and her several years over it. He also looked like he was waiting for the punch line, the reason for a (Darcy might have gotten her hair and eyes from her father, but she got her body from her Mom) smoking hot woman to be sitting in his lap and nibbling on his earlobe.

"Surprise," Darcy mumbled to herself. "You've got family."

He was cute, she admitted to herself. She could totally see why Mom had gone for him. Apparently beer goggles weren't in effect in- where was that, Cuba? Maybe Hawai'i. When had Americans been banned from Cuban soil, again?- because Mom would zero in on the cutest guy in the bar, no matter how many drinks she'd had.

Darcy kept the pictures, just in case she ran across someone that looked a little like her and more like him. She'd always wanted a brother or sister.

3\. When she was seventeen, she found out exactly who the guy in the pictures was. She'd mentally titled him "Shy Nerd" which, hello, redundant much? Nerds tended to be shy around attractive specimens of the opposite gender.

In her own experience, anyways. At least, once you got over the whole 'can't remember their own name' and 'incoherent stuttering', they made good friends. Darcy ensured her nerd-group actually ate their meals and didn't get munched in Phys Ed, and they helped her pass Chemistry and Physics, both of which were evil subjects and shouldn't be required courses.

Anyways, the one thing her little nerd group did was follow science journals, and one day they were all around her kitchen table munching homemade cookies and explaining how to spell "Batman" with various chemical abbreviations (Not entirely possible, to the exact letter, but everyone agreed that "Barium Tantalum Manganese" was the closest anyone was going to get, and "SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM SODIUM" was totally the Batman theme song) while flipping through whatever their favorite science journal was.

And Gerald, who was studying biochemistry or something, and actually stood up to bullies (and got his ass handed to him every time- Darcy kept a close watch on Gerald and made sure to always wear her Mom's old steel toed boots to school, no matter what the teachers, principle, guidance counselor, and that one visiting police officer had said) had left his magazine open to some article or other, and Darcy had looked down.

"Oh, who's this guy?" she asked, pointing at an older version of "Shy Nerd" from her mother's photos. Still cute; old enough to be her father, no duh, but at least it was clear she got good looks from _both_ sides of the family.

"Dr. Bruce Banner," Gerald burbled, eyes bright and grin manic. "He's currently the leading authority in gamma radiation right now."

"Awesome. Think he'll win any awards?"

"He'd better!"

Of course, he doesn't, but Darcy doesn't find out about that until several years later.

4\. She's twenty-four when she actually meets Dr. Bruce Banner. She's helping clean up New York after aliens from outer space (even after Thor, how is that a phrase she's come to say daily?) tried to munch the town.

Heroes stopped them. Hallelujah and whatever, she just wants to clear bricks off the streets and hope to hell there aren't any dead bodies around.

Surprisingly, there aren't many. Dead bodies. The collapsed buildings were the first things people went through, professional disaster search teams, SWAT, she doesn't know... Civilians aren't welcome in that part, except to bring water and power bars and she didn't arrive in time to help with that bit anyways.

She'd lie and say she's sorry she missed it, except she lies, she's so, so thankful she wasn't involved in pulling dead people out. The last time Jane got a paper cut, Darcy ran around like a chicken just after visiting the chopping block. The less said about all the things blowing up in Puente desert-town, the better. (And no, Darcy can't remember what that town was called. She was more concerned with making sure Jane ate and slept and didn't drive into weird-ass tornadoes than figuring out where on the map she was.)

She's obviously not the only person working in New York, not even the only out of towner volunteering, but she is the only one who threatens to taze Tony Stark.

Her taser is confiscated, Tony threatens to give her a job, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is when she meets him. Dr. Bruce Banner.

It'd be a total romantic cliché except for the minor bit of where that's very gross, completely, because hello those eyes are the ones she sees in the mirror, and that hair is just as impossible as her own, only shorter with bits of gray, and no. Okay? No.

He doesn't notice her shock. Tony Stark, unfortunately, does. And promptly makes a few wise ass cracks, which end up with him curled in a foetal position clutching the family jewels while Darcy explains herself to another Suit.

Apparently Shield's involved in the clean up. And don't want anyone kicking Tony Iron Man Stark where it really hurts, even if he does deserve it.

5\. Jane puts in a good word for her; Jane's working for Shield now, apparently. Aliens from outer space, and Jane's the only one with half a clue about portals and what all.

Thor puts in a louder word, once he's done cuddling Jane and murmuring sweet nothings to her in what sounds like Norse. Or maybe old Germanic. Darcy took Spanish in high school, for like, a year and a half before giving it up. She's pretty sure her old teacher passed her out of pity, giving her marks for spelling her name right.

Anyways, Darcy ends up out of trouble and in the lab with Foster and Crazy Crew. She's technically not an assistant any more, except there's no good job title that sums up "in charge of these people's sanity and caloric intake" and yeah, she's a glorified babysitter. But she's being paid enough to make a living at it, and as a repayment for the jackass act earlier, Tony Stark puts her up at Stark Tower.

All protests from the (sane) dull portion of the Avengers and Shield are promptly ignored. Tony gives Darcy a shiny new taser with a few very illegal no matter where in the world you are options.

She names it "Slugger".

The thing is, though, Foster and Crazy Crew is basically made up of Jane, Thor when he feels like offering a story from home in the name of Science! and Tony Stark ("Seriously, call me Tony, if you do the full name the lab will be on fire and I'll be missing my hair and you'll still be saying my name, so Tony, please") and Bruce Banner.

Bruce Banner, who turns into the Hulk and also happens to be Darcy's father. There is absolutely no way to emphasise that enough.

Darcy asks him out to dinner, after he's spent nearly fourteen hours in the lab. He turns her down.

6\. So, it turns out people get the wrong idea when a young, pretty girl ask an older, distinguished scientist (with horrifying anger issues) out to dinner/lunch/breakfast/Get some sunlight before you start growing mushrooms, Doc, practically every day.

Jane asks Darcy out to lunch, and proceeds to interrogate her about her intentions towards the good Dr. Banner.

"Jane, it's totally not like that. He just needs to get out of the lab. You have Thor, Tony has Pepper, and there's that Betty chick but the legal papers and red tape and Colonel Cranky-pants and I figure at the very least I can make sure he sees daylight without a window in the way, yeah?"

It turns out Thor takes the opportunity to give Dr. Banner the shovel talk, Norse fashion.

It'd be flattering, except Thor often forgets to use his inside voice when he gets excited, and Dr. Banner being courted by 'the fierce and lovely Darcy' means loud, apparently. So now Darcy has the _entire freaking tower_ thinking she's got the hots for her _father_ , God, why?!

Damage control. She needs to do damage control.

She starts with the dangerous people first.

7\. First, her supposed boss: "Coulson, before you start yelling at me or making me do paperwork, do a quick paternity test with my DNA and all of the Avengers with dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and bad eyesight. Normally bad eyesight. When he's not green."

"Do I want to know?"

"The paternity test will reveal all."

Then Natasha, because ladies first and all: "No. No and no and no. I have absolutely no problem with older men, but I don't poach and I have a future step-mother, I'm just trying to make sure she doesn't find a gamma radiated skeleton hunched over a microscope. Is the cute hunk in PR single, by the way?"

And then Clint, because who the hell knows what he's overheard by now: "Okay, air vent dweller. Any more NERF arrows at my butt and I'm going to sic my dad on you."

"Thought you didn't have one. In the picture."

"That's what you think, because he's in _this_ picture and he can totally take you with his little toe, dude. Seriously. Now stop trying to interrupt daddy-daughter bonding time, m'kay?"

" _Oh my god_!"

"Yeah, don't drink on spring break."

" _Oh my god_!"

"Gonna keep repeating that, aren't you?"

" _Oh my god_!"

"You're such a troll, Barton."

"Thank you."

8\. After that she tells Pepper and Jane, who take care of telling Tony and Thor, and Tony and Thor take care of telling _everyone else but Dr. Banner_.

At that point, everyone knows. _Except him_. Coulson's had the proof for two weeks now, and everyone knows, and Dr. Banner even signed off on the Shield paperwork for family benefits or some such shit and what. Seriously. What.

How the hell does he sign off on _family benefits_ without realizing that oh, that means he has _family_. _In Shield_.

If Darcy didn't know her nerds, she'd be worried or upset or... Well, she'd pull out Slugger and meet Hulk in person. He's probably got a bigger clue than Dr. Banner does, because seriously!

At least her pestering has finally paid off. Dr. Banner's agreed to a "Totally friends, not coming onto you, this is my apology for Thor and my way to get you in a venue where I can totally lecture about your music selection and eating habits without you paying the microscope more attention than your own health, Doc, I'll make Steve force you to go" dinner. She'll tell him then.

After explaining why Tibetan chanting is actually _bad_ for his emotional stability, because if she has to listen to one more day of it she's pulling the fire alarm.

9\. She gets kidnapped. What the fuck, she actually gets kidnapped. By the US military, because apparently Colonel Crazy-pants (who doesn't appreciate his nickname) totally has a hard on for Dr. Banner.

He doesn't like that observation either.

Anyways, she's grabbed off the street, and taken to an undisclosed location (cough she recognizes New Mexico, cough) and stripped of all her weaponry. Slugger's smashed to thousands of pieces. She's very sad.

"At least Banner didn't reproduce with my daughter," Colonel Crazy-pants mutters. Darcy wonders if she was supposed to hear him. Probably not. Meh, not her problem.

"Does everyone _but_ him know I'm his kid?" she asks, somewhat plaintively. At least she'll be rescued. She's confident of that. She's been taken as bait, and Dr. Banner has that martyr complex that means he'll rescue a stranger on the street, never mind someone he actually knows. All she has to do is wait.

Except she really doesn't want to wait, she still has her steel toed boots (thanks, Mom) and what the fuck. They forgot to tie her with something other than plain old rope.

God, kicking that asshole in the chin is _really_ satisfying. The other guards- there's two of them- forget to draw their guns.

They're trained soldiers but she took on bullies for her nerd squad all through high school. Besides, Darcy bites.

She pays for her win, oh how she pays, but she wins and that's the important thing. There's blood and snot and she's very carefully keeping her tongue from touching her teeth, afraid she might be _missing_ some, and that's a broken arm and twisted ankle and maybe broken ribs and she feels _amazing_.

That, of course, is when the rescue arrives. Darcy grins, and if she could look at herself in the mirror right that moment, she looks like the Hulk, feral and bright, right before unleashing an unstoppable force of nature.

Or in this case- Darcy storms her way through the compound to the outside, ignoring the soldiers around her unless they're stupid enough not to move, in which case she has fucking boots, baby, and everyone jumps when they're literally kicked in the ass.

Anyways, they're trying to keep people out, not keep them in, because they don't realize she's escaped and the roof's caving in, so they're maybe a little distracted.

Darcy gets outside without adding to her bruises, except that ankle of hers that hurts but the boot is keeping it all good, so.

There might be a concussion. There's really no other reason for why she stomps towards the Hulk, fists clenched (ow, her _arm_ ) and shoulders hunched up to her ears.

"You!" she yells. Okay, shrieks. Because it's been a day, alright? "Big and green!"

For some reason, this stops all the fighting, because why not? Hulk snorts at the no longer shooting guns, then turns his head and glowers at her. Fuck that. Seriously, fuck that!

Darcy stops far enough away she's not going to end up in a neck brace having to crane her head back, but definitely within reach of the big green guy. "I've got a few things to say to you," she says, a little quieter because she no longer has to compete with fucking _bombs_.

Hulk _looms_. Like, he's twelve, maybe fifteen feet tall, and in the quiet shrieking corner of her brain not currently fizzled out on complete and utter _rage_ , she's pretty sure he's almost as broad as he's tall. Doesn't matter.

"Three months, a fucking paternity test- you signed papers from Shield acknowledging I can use your _family benefits_ , do I have to put up a goddamn _billboard_? Hi! _Dad_! You're fucking clueless and goddamn _Ross_ figured it out before you did! _You signed the papers_!"

So maybe she gets a little shrill.

On the other hand, she has the unique, one of a time chance to see Hulk, rage monster himself look stunned, like she thwapped him in the face with a three week dead salmon- she mentally upgrades that to tuna, because he's that giant- only he's not angry about it, he's shocked and delighted and panicked and okay.

She kind of wishes she'd told Dr. Banner before Mr. Hulk, but whatever. She's told him, that's the thing.

10\. "I honestly... didn't know."

"Uh, no, duh, Mom didn't get your name. And wouldn't have told you if she had. Hippy phase, you know how it goes."

"I don't, actually. But, um, you're... okay with all this? I'm not... father of the year material."

"Don't worry, Doc, I'm not looking for some sappy Hallmark or anything."

"I just, you just deserve a better father than-"

"Better you than some of the, ahem, uncles mom brought home. Or aunts, for that matter."

"What?"

"Look. You're here. You're my father. Just, if you could maybe stop blowing me off when I offer food?"

"I'm sorry about that. I thought-"

"The entire tower knows what you, and Thor, thought. It's cool."

"Are you-"

"If you apologize or ask me if the whole family thing is okay one more time, I'm going to taze you so hard. I'm not scared of you. Now, Dr. Banner. Why don't we see about getting to know each other enough that I can at least call you Bruce. Even if 'Dad' would be more appropriate, but considering you're turning this kind of weird oatmeal color I think it's a bit early for that. Breathe, dude."

* * *

_Barium Tantalum Manganese -- > Chemical symbols as follows: barium (Ba) tantalum (Ta) manganese (Mn)_

_Sodium -- > Chemical symbol's Na. Look up the old Batman theme, which is typically sung (at least in my household) by bellowing "na" at the top of your lungs._

_Apart from "sodium", I referenced an online Periodic Table of the Elements (while listening to the Element song) to look up and confirm the symbols that go with the names and vice versa. The idea for spelling Batman's name via chemicals, as well as the Batman theme song, came from Not Always Right and affiliate websites. Look it up- they're hilarious._

_Darcy's always Bruce's boyfriend. Except what if she's not?_


End file.
